Ranting comedy alienates students

The Campus Activities Board brought laughter to La Verne once again Wednesday night by inviting comedians David Liu and Taylor Williamson to share the stage just a month after comedian Amy Anderson made an appearance.

The night started off with opening act David Liu warming up the crowd.

Liu, who currently works at The Comedy Store and performs at locations all over Los Angeles, began his performance by astonishing the audience with his unexpectedly deep voice that resembles that of “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane.

At the beginning of his performance, Liu experienced technical difficulties with his microphone, but played it off by telling jokes and making it seem like a part of the show.

After the audio problem was fixed, Liu continued by saying that he dropped out of college and made jokes about being Asian.

One of his jokes, which was difficult to believe, supported his Asian age defying theory that he is 30 years old but looks like he just turned 21.

He also made comments about how Jeremy Lin set the bar too high for Asians who would like to play professional basketball.

Liu joked that Lin has not only had success in the NBA, but also graduated from Harvard and is now the standard that every Asian parent will hold for their own children.

What first seemed to be a repeat of the stereotypical, racially influenced comedy turned out to be a well prepared and funny bit with a good balance of racial humor.

After Liu finished his performance he introduced the main act for the night, Taylor Williamson.

With previous performances on “Last Comic Standing,” Comedy Central and at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, students were anticipating an excellent show from the comedian.

As Williamson walked onto the stage and greeted the audience, a group of women quietly walked in and sat in the back of the room in hopes of going unnoticed.

This fueled a rant and he asked them why they were late and making fun of the excuses they gave him.

When Williamson finally seemed to start his original material, another group of students walked in late and he began another rant.

Just as Williamson began his planned material about how he would pull the plug on his mother’s life support if she left him enough money, a woman got up to leave which triggered another rant.

“It seemed that (Williamson) was just making fun of the audience,” Elyse Campos, a Glendora resident that attended the event, said.

“I like Amy Anderson’s show better,” Cory Campos said.

There was a lot of variation in the planned portion of his performance that included a bit on the Jewish dating website J-Date, a bit on whether cannibals get mad if they find hair in their food, and even a bit on impressions.

Williamson’s regular stand-up routine, which would have been otherwise entertaining, was overshadowed by this rants about the audience arriving late and leaving early.

Although the rants came off as rude and annoying rather than amusing, some students left the show pleased with the comedian’s routine.

“All things considered I enjoyed the show and thought it was funny,” Karina McLeod, a sophomore art major, said.